Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 225

What Is New About This? After All, We Already Had a Connection with the Host Before…

No. From our side, we never had a connection with the Host, nor did we feel Him as we are destined to feel Him. This is because the final correction that the Creator created is at the Creator’s expense, not at the expense of the created being. In Kabbalah, we learn that the expansion of the Light and its departure make the vessel fit for its role. In other words, only then does a deficiency arise, and from that deficiency comes the connection between the created being and the Creator. Before that, there was no connection.

The most the Creator can do is create a desire to receive, fill it, and give it a feeling of shame, so that through all these things it will restrict itself, undergo various incarnations, and spill over to the opposite end. The Creator cannot bring it closer without this process, because then the desire does not develop and we do not draw closer to the Creator. The Creator can do everything except give us the feeling that we ourselves accomplished it. Baal HaSulam illustrates this with a short story:

Two friends meet after twenty years without seeing one another. One has become wealthy and the other has become poor. The wealthy friend takes the poor friend into his home and says, “Everything I have is yours.” They spend time together, enjoy themselves, and everything is wonderful. Indeed, the wealthy friend gives his companion every good thing wholeheartedly. He makes no calculations and is completely willing to place everything before the poor man. After a week, the poor man, who understands that his friend is giving to him exactly as he would give to himself, and even more so, without any calculations, says to him: “There is a problem here. There is only one flaw: it was not I who did this; it was you. And there is nothing you can do to change that fact. There is only one thing you can do if you truly want to do me a favor: give me the opportunity to achieve what you have on my own.” That is what the Creator does for us. When we arrive, we truly arrive at an equal level with Him.

Related Material:
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 224
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 223
Talks about the Steps of the Ladder, Part 222

Question: What should you do if a friend does not elevate you, but humiliates you? After all, there should be mutual relations in the group. It turns out that you invest effort, and he… .

Answer: Let’s suppose that the whole group is in a certain state where it does not awaken or uplift me in any way. In such a case, it is worthwhile to take several people from the group, work only with them, and together with them set an example for everyone else. But without unnecessary words—simply set an example.

If the others want to listen, then also tell them: “We are tired of sitting in the ‘assembly of the frivolous,’ and we have decided that we want to get out of this state. If you want, join us, and if not, then don’t. We can no longer continue like this.”

A person can do this alone, or take several like-minded friends with whom it will be easier. That is all. For this, there is no need to unite into groups; this can be done freely, so that everyone has the opportunity to join.

In any case, one needs somehow to look for a way to break the existing situation. And here, I think, it is not even worth giving advice. Seek advice yourselves, and that itself will be a blessed work.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/18/26, Rabash, “What Are ‘Blessing’ and ‘Curse’ in the Work?”

Question: If the desire to receive agrees to perform work, it expects a reward for it. How can it agree to something other than what it anticipates? For in every action—in work with the group or in study—the desire to receive imagines some payment for itself; otherwise, it would not agree to work.

Answer: What kind of reward should we imagine? We cannot choose the reward. It already exists and depends on my Kli (vessel), on the state I am currently in.

What is considered a reward in spirituality? We do not know this and cannot imagine it. You might simply speak words about desiring to receive the intention for the sake of bestowal as your reward, claiming that opportunity of  bringing pleasure to the Creator will be your reward. But how can this be?

What enjoyment will I be able to receive from this? How will I be able to feel that a Kli which is outside me is being filled? We have not the slightest idea about this. We do not know how one enjoys fusion with the Creator. We truly cannot feel such actions within ourselves. Not yet…

Question: But how can one want to change the reward?

Answer: One can want to change the reward only as a result of blows. There is no other solution. But one can pass through them more quickly only if a person is able to endure them. And one can endure them if one turns them from animal sufferings into sufferings of the soul.

For animal sufferings are stretched out over a long time, and only then can you endure them. But this takes a lot of time. If you want to shorten them, you cannot remain in the same plane of animalistic sufferings.

You must rise above it and change the quality of the blows, transfer them from the animalistic realm into the realm of the spiritual. And then one “soul” blow, that is, as it were a spiritual blow, is counted for you as a thousand animalistic blows. In this way you shorten the time. That is, the blows become qualitative, not quantitative.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/17/26, Rabash, “What Are Commandments that a Person Tramples with His Feet”

Question: Is a transition to a secular worldview necessary when moving from the inanimate stage (Domem) to the vegetative stage (Tzomeach)?

Answer: No, a person does not have to go from being religious at the still level of holiness (Domem de Kedusha) to being secular, to then arrive to Kabbalah. These stages are completely unrelated to one another. There are examples: the Hasidim and the Mitnagdim. In Judaism today, there is a very deep divide.

There are many people who understand that Judaism is in a deep crisis. Unlike what existed a hundred years ago, today all the values, the entire approach, have collapsed. This is clear to many people who, without being organized into groups, study and even get together in small groups to talk about it. I hear from those who call and inquire that this is indeed happening.

There is nothing you can do about it. We are talking about creation, about development, when a person suddenly begins to feel that something is missing in his books, in his way of studying. He may even study Gemara, thinking in spiritual terms, but suddenly, whether he wants it or not, he is “led away.”

He, like us, is brought to a state where he opens a book he did not want to read before—and suddenly, what opens up before him is not a book, but an entire world. I recognize this reaction in people and hope that this is how it will continue. Baal HaSulam and all the Kabbalists of various generations emerged in precisely this way.

Question: But we are talking about individuals. Shouldn’t this become a widespread phenomenon?

Answer: These are not individuals. We are talking about tens and hundreds of people in each generation. Two or three hundred years ago, there were very large groups of people who had attained spiritual levels. Let us remember the Baal Shem Tov and Kotzk. In the time of the Baal Shem Tov, there were thousands of them. There were thousands in every generation. All these Admorim, up until the twentieth century, possessed spiritual attainment, and the books they wrote were, of course, holy books, since they were all Kabbalists.
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From the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 8/12/26, Rabash, “One Should Always Sell Everything He Has and Marry a Wise Disciple’s Daughter”